"We think it's adding unjustifiably, significant additional and intrusive powers to government, when a more collaborative approach might be a better alternative," he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

Greens deputy leader Scott Ludlam joked Attorney-General George Brandis, who once struggled to explain what metadata was, shouldn't be telling people which hard drives to buy.

"I think the last thing we would want to see is commonwealth bureaucrats telling computer security experts who run these big telecommunications companies how to run their networks and their data centres," he said.